During my absence from writing here (I plan on letting you know more about what I have been up to sometime), I've noticed that many artists are making a whole lot of money from a relatively new site called Patreon. I was introduced to Patreon a couple years ago, and planned on diving into it way before now, but life circumstances got in the way. Now that I have returned, I plan on writing a series of articles involving Patreon and how it can help creative people earn a sustainable income.

Patreon is based on a very simple tiered reward system, reminiscent of something like Kickstarter or Gofundme. Artists can simply offer perks for each level. For example, exclusive membership in a Discord chatroom, newsletter membership, exclusive video tutorials, podcasts and much more. Members have already come up with a whole slew of creative and ingenious ideas, and I plan on sharing some of these in a future post.

One of the main benefits of joining Patreon is that it helps to give an already established following a way of supporting the artist. Even if you do not yet have a good following, it could be one of the things that helps you get there. The whole system is easy to learn, and if you offer perks you like spending time doing, can be very enjoyable as well.

I would like to introduce you to Artpromotivate's own new Patreon page. If you appreciate what we are doing with this site, and would like to support it's growth and expansion, this is a great way of doing so! Our new official Patreon can be found here: Artpromotivate on Patreon

The perks for supporting us are:

One dollar - A heartfelt THANK-YOU for supporting us, which will help us grow and support artists with more opportunities in the future.

Two dollars - Your name or website included on a special Patreon thank-you page at Artpromotivate.com. This page will be easily reached via a link in our sidebar and/or top menu.

Three dollars - Make that name or website a clickable link (nofollow), so that others can easily visit.

Five dollars - All the above, and be a member of our (to be announced) Patreon only Discord channel, where I hope to regularly chat personally with all of you. This channel will have special rooms for art promotion, sharing advice and tips, and even just casual chatting with other like minds.

Also get exclusive access to certain Patreon only tiered posts!

Ten dollars - All the above, plus be included in a special list of Patreons in the sidebar, which will be a clickable link to your website. This list will be included on each page of the well over 800 posts on this website!

Twenty dollars - All the above PLUS Rotating Square Patreon Promoter Banner - We have always wanted to fill Artpromotivate with more art instead of all those advertisements that once appeared in the sidebar. This tier will help us do so!

Have a photo of one of your artworks or a self created banner (336x280) potentially appear in the sidebar of every page of this website. There will be a limit of 10 artworks per rotating banner - so that you will have an excellent chance of your banner appearing over thousand times a day. (APM has over 30,000 pageviews a month, and growing!) Also, we will be starting with a set of 5 total rotating banners, filling them sequentially, so that you will have maximum chances of your image appearing. The initial purchasers of this tier will benefit greatly from this, as they will not have to compete with all those other images! Also, we will add additional advertising perks for this tier as the subscribers grow.

Are there additional perks you would like to see, or do you have any suggestions? Should any of these perks be adjusted in any way. Another idea is to have a perk for tweeting to Twitter and sharing your art on Facebook with Artpromotivate followers once a month. Is this something you would like to see here?

If you have any tips or experiences to share with our audience, please share them below with a link to your Patreon page.

Also, if you would like to write an extended article with your own Patreon tips, you are welcome to send it to us along with your Patreon link. Submissions can be sent to: gmatthews 9 at gmail dot com (without the spaces and including the @ and .)